(Phys.org) —As is the case in all areas of science, our understanding of evolutionary biology is… well, evolving. Two such areas are macroevolution (any evolutionary change at or above the level of species ...

From antiseptic oils to the construction of didgeridoos, the traditional Australian Aboriginal wind instrument, the eucalyptus tree serves myriad purposes, accounting for its status as one of the world's ...

During the age of the dinosaurs, the arrival of flowering plants as competitors could have spelled doom for the ancient fern lineage. Instead, ferns diversified and flourished under the new canopy—using ...

Duckweed is a tiny floating plant that's been known to drive people daffy. It's one of the smallest and fastest-growing flowering plants that often becomes a hard-to-control weed in ponds and small lakes. ...

Glomeromycota is an ancient lineage of fungi that has a symbiotic relationship with roots that goes back nearly 420 million years to the earliest plants. More than two thirds of the world's plants depend ...

(PhysOrg.com)—An international research team decoded the genetic blueprint of the two-spotted spider mite, raising hope for new ways to attack the major pest, which resists pesticides and destroys crops ...

Corn split off from its closest relative teosinte, a wild Mexican grass, about 10,000 years ago thanks to the breeding efforts of early Mexican farmers. Today it's hard to tell that the two plants were ever close kin: Corn ...

Over millennia, mice have thrived despite humanity's efforts to keep them at bay. A Rice University scientist argues some mice have found two ways to achieve a single goal -- resistance to common poison.

(PhysOrg.com) -- A Purdue University-led sequencing of the Selaginella moellendorffii (spikemoss) genome - the first for a non-seed vascular plant - is expected to give scientists a better understanding of how ...

(PhysOrg.com) -- The evolution and diversification of the more than 300,000 living species of flowering plants may have been "jump started" much earlier than previously calculated, a new study indicates. According ...

Rigorous analysis of the structures of thousands of plant proteins by Tetsuya Sakurai and colleagues from the RIKEN Center for Sustainable Resource Science has led to the construction of a database that will ...

Genetically modified crops have long drawn fire from opponents worried about potential contamination of conventional crops and other plants. Now a plant gene discovered by University of Guelph scientists ...

We often think of damage on a surface level. But for plants, much of the important response to an insect bite takes place out of sight. Over minutes and hours, particular plant genes are turned on and off ...